Gospel Meta Narrative to the New Atheists

Post 1

Why I first got involved in this topic is because there often is a “Faith vs. Knowledge” dichotomy that is setup in Christianity. This especially seems to take place after Christianity spends a few centuries dealing with the Gnostic heresies. After this time, Gnosis especially of the revelatory nature, takes on negative connotations where Christians tend to shy away from using it unless directly quoting from a Koine Greek passage. The sad part of this is “Faith” often works through revelatory Gnosis. Take a look at the following example.


Matthew 16:13-19 New International Version (NIV) Peter Declares That Jesus Is the Messiah 13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter,[a] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[c] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[d] loosed in heaven.”


It is clear in the following example that Peter’s declaration of Faith was preceded by receiving a kind of revelation (aka Gnosis).


In today’s society we often have different kinds of paradigms and beliefs. One of them that is prevalent, especially when dealing with atheists is to speak of "Faith as believing in something that you do not have any direct evidence for" aka blind faith. In this case, Faith is seen as a form of sentiment, wishful thinking etc. And is often contrasted with the more rational viewpoint of the atheist who believes in empiricism, logic, learning through the scientific method of experimentation and observation. In this case, Gnosis in the Revelatory sense can be seen as a kind of proof or evidence or witness. Having a direct revelation from God is something different than blind faith. Of course getting an atheist (who most likely suffers from his own biases) to believe this is another story, but hopefully this distinction will help Christians and other theists.


But beyond this in my next post, I will show that various aspects of Epistemology are in fact at the very heart of Faith. Prophetic visions and revelations no matter how emotionally powerful they might be, prove nothing unless they align with basic external reality, in other words even people who believe in the "supernatural" believe that well-meaning sincere people can be deluded and deceived.

Evidentialism Post 2
I once thought Evidentialism was a dirty word — or at least I treated it that way. It was mostly used by the New Atheists, who seemed to hold obvious contempt for Christianity and theistic belief in general. Ironically, I felt similar disdain for the opposite extreme.
Spending time on Christian message boards and occasionally engaging with atheists, I realized something unexpected. Growing up in California’s tech culture, I often had more in common culturally with certain atheists than with some of the Christian fundamentalists I encountered online. We shared interests in computer gaming, science fiction movies, and TV shows. I even thought I might join one of the popular atheist forums of the day to discuss the big “Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything” questions (famously referenced in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).

That didn’t quite work out. Instead, I discovered that atheists are human too — just as prone to logical fallacies and tribal thinking as the rest of us “less evolved theistic life forms.” But that experience did lead me to one firm conclusion: Evidentialism was bad. I saw it as nothing more than a materialistic philosophy and worldview. Of course, if you actually take the time to look up the term, you quickly realize that notion is not true. According to the seminal formulation by epistemologists Earl Conee and Richard Feldman:
A person S is epistemically justified in adopting a particular doxastic attitude d (belief, disbelief, or suspension of judgment) toward a proposition p at time t if and only if S’s evidence at t supports adopting d toward p.

This core thesis holds that the justification of one’s beliefs is determined entirely by the quality and support provided by one’s evidence. When I finally understood this, I immediately realized that I had been a Christian Evidentialist all along — and that is probably largely true for many other Christians who get into apologetics. There are, however, huge differences in the kinds of things we consider important as evidence compared to atheists.

One surprising thing I like to bring up to atheists is that Christianity itself requires a certain degree of evidentialist epistemology. Saint Paul tells us to “Test all things and hold on to the good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). The term for “truth” in the Greek New Testament is aletheia, which describes objective truth in fact and detail. This complements the Hebraic concept of truth, emet, derived from a root word for strength and structural integrity — a notion that strongly reminds me of Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish builders.
I once studied psychology and psychotherapy as my first serious area of study for my chosen career (a path that ultimately did not materialize). From that background, I recognize the near-perfect correlation between mental health and an aletheia worldview.

One of my favorite TED Talks is from former drug addict Michael Brody-Waite. In recovery, he learned three principles from Narcotics Anonymous that literally saved his life. He later realized these same principles created a massive competitive advantage in business.
As he explains: “We built a company with 50 people that practice these principles as a competitive advantage. We went up against companies with 600 employees or 150 million in venture capital against my credit card, and we would win. We won because our partners knew we were authentic; we were upfront about what we were good at and what we weren't. We told them what we knew and what we didn't know. We practiced surrender when it came to business decisions.”Brody-Waite discovered that by building his company culture around rigorous authenticity, surrendering the outcome, and doing uncomfortable work, his much smaller team consistently outperformed larger, better-funded competitors. Clients trusted them because they could count on his honesty — describing clearly what they were good at and what they were not. What began as a survival strategy in recovery became the foundation for exceptional leadership and business success.

Linda said:

It is clear in the following example that Peter’s declaration of Faith was preceded by receiving a kind of revelation (aka Gnosis).

“ a kind of revelation” would not mean
Gnosis, when Peter was a chosen Apostle,
Yes?
So are you suggesting that unless St. Peter
Quoted God, the “ logic” isnt there to
Trust what he says?
Would you therefore be saying that the Bible
Would have otherwise given us a direct quote by God?

Click to expand...

You're reading too much into it. I'm just saying it comes via a Charism. Gnosis is too general a word — it can mean factual knowledge, revelation knowledge, carnal knowledge, etc.

I also add that when it comes to Divine Revelation, I don’t think in terms of strict logic. That seems more like a Calvinist or later Latin approach to me. I was simply noting that the Father revealed it to Peter in the text.

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